“As all 7 billion people on earth know, Apple (AAPL) dropped about 10% yesterday after the company’s holiday quarter and guidance fell short of expectations,” Jeff Macke reports for Yahoo Finance’s Breakout. “No need to rehash the misery. The only question now is whether Apple is just going through a short-term transition or is slowly becoming a modern day version of its long-time nemesis Microsoft (MSFT).”

“Count investor/ author/ entrepreneur Carol Roth as one of those in the camp that says Apple’s best days are behind it,” Macke reports. “‘There is a point in time when these companies become too big to succeed,’ Roth says. ‘Apple now is twice Microsoft’s size, approximately, and I think it’s running into the same issues; it’s very hard to get that huge growth when you are so large.'”

Macke reports, “Apple is a money-printing machine. If they never sold another iPhone or iPad, the iTunes store would still crank out billions in profits. But the market looks forward and it’s going to be all but impossible for Apple to retain its share of the smartphone or tablet industries. That’s the problem with inventing wildly profitable products — everyone starts gunning for you… Apple became the “Best Company on Earth” by taking the title from Microsoft. If Apple can’t keep defending that title with hotter and better offerings, it’s going to become what Microsoft is today: a money-printing machine with an absolutely dead stock.”

You seem to be mistaking Apple’s recent supply chain incompetence for lack of competition. I assure you, Apple has much need of better manufacturing controls, but there is no shortage of competition. Samdroid really is taking away a huge chunk of Apple’s potential sales, and Apple management has done a poor job explaining what they intend to do about it. You don’t attract investor confidence by saying, “just wait for our secret new thing, it’s in the pipeline” forever.

the list of products that need overhaul continues to grow, and the quality of recent releases (Maps, iTunes, etc) has not helped sales at all.

Apple’s market (the high end) is killing Samsung. There is no competition whatsoever. The ones who are opting for cheap phones will do irregardles. People dont love Samsung, they either want cheap, hate Apple or are stupid/dont care and go for samsung. That is not competition. Maps was “ok” and itunes is fine.

thank goodness Apple isn’t as out of touch as you. Samsung has Apple in its sights, and it has benchmarked Apple for its handset design. Though hampered by an inferior OS and app market, Samsung is still selling a lot of phones, including way too many Galaxies to former Apple customers.

Do not be pride-filled and willfully ignorant, and do not underestimate your competitor. These are the first mistakes that failing empires make.

“Samsing is still selling … Galaxies to former Apple customers.” Wait. What!!?

Where did you get that from? Only a small percentage of Apple customers leave the Apple ecosystem. Samsung is certainly selling to people who have never owned an Apple product. But they’re not getting very many switchers away from Apple.

Hey Mikey
You just like to make this shit up as you go along, don’t you?

Apple just reported the most profitable year of any company EVER, the fourth-most profitable quarter of any company EVER… all signs that the stock market makes absolutely no sense, and analysts either do not “get” Apple at all, or that it is the most manipulated stock EVER, because it always rebounds!

Analysts don’t “manipulate”. They calculate based on limited publicly-available information. Some of that information is intentionally misleading, some of it is useless noise that needlessly sets off alarm bells. No human being can accurately put a price on risk, but that’s exactly what the stock market is: a calculated guess of what the future value of a company will be after all the risks and opportunities play out.

In the case of Apple, clearly the market wants more guidance from Apple leadership. The stock price will return to more robust earnings when risks are addressed: competition, aging products, quality of software releases, supply chain constraints, and more. Cook and Co are doing a crappy job owning up to these recent setbacks — and hence the market is applying full discounting assuming all these risks will continue to get worse.

BS….. The Analcysts have NEVER listened to Apple’s guidance. Neither the Analcysts or ‘the street’ know how Apple work. Yet they overblow their ‘expert predictions’ in spite of what Apple says in their quarterly guidance, and Apple is punished in the market on even the most wildly successful quarters in the history of history.

Apple calculated their earnings based on real numbers and beat them. Analysts “calculated” their predictions based on limited numbers. They were off. Apple performed better than any company on earth. This fact is ignored by analysts. You are gullible if you think analysts don’t manipulate the stock. You really believe apple is failing? What other company can’t keep up with demand and makes $54.5 billion in a quarter?

moreover, several high-profile analysts were closer in their earnings prediction than Apple was. Apple has a history of low-balling its estimates, sometimes very badly. Obviously not all analysts were accurate, because a lot of them are short-sighted idiots with poor economic models, and let’s face it, life is a crap shoot anyway. It sounds to me as though your religious belief in Apple is trumping sound objective measures.

In the end, no one here would be arguing about stock price if their emotions weren’t hurt that somebody else doesn’t value Apple as highly as you do. That’s all the stock market is: a popularity contest. And yes, it is absolutely Apple management’s fault if they can’t maintain investor interest. Cook should return his over-inflated salary if he can’t/won’t.

You probably meant to add on to that, “throughout the quarter.” Apple already gives them their guidance once a quarter. Personally, I don’t think they listen, and so if I were “Apple leadership” I wouldn’t waste my time giving additional guidance.

You are absolutely right. And right now there are a shitload of people that are able to garner what may well be the best sale of the decade with AAPL on sale at 50% off. Because, a calm, reasonable, knowledgeable, and capable investor can look at the stock price, the financial statements, the business model, from inventory handling, to supply chain, to receivables turnover to bottom line profit and P/E, and justify $900 a share (or the $1,000/share that I showed was easily justified in my analysis here yesterday). iCal me, MDN, for a year from now. The economy is starting to cook along, and there’s isn’t any sign that Apple’s growth is going to abate. On the contrary, over the last 4 years, in an economy that has limped along under a contentious government, ending an unjustified, and very expensive war, winding down another, Apple’s new products have produced a wave of new Mac owners. And Mac owners tend to be a lot more brand-loyal. Indeed, they are coming from the iPhone and the iPad to get to the Mac. Loyalty has always been a boon to AAPL. It’s only going to grow from here. As long as Apple remains the innovative, user-experience-centric company that it always has been.

So, everyone, go out and give yourself a treat. By $50,000 of Apple stock at 50% off, before the market comes to its senses.

Yes, even if Steve Jobs never came CLOSE to achieving that. Current expectations are now light years beyond what people expected of Jobs. Poor Tim Cook, be careful what you wish for. Having said that I think Apple will pull some more magic out of the hat(e) this year and confound these “hacksperts”.

Another “armchair expert” blathering nonsense. Apple has always defied expectations and will continue to do so. There is no sign that Apple will fail to maintain market share in smartphones or tablets – indeed, especially in the US, the reverse is true. This nonsense is just a byproduct of an American culture which encourages big mouths and empty heads.

Apple has re-invented digital music (iPod and iTunes), re-invented mobile phones (iPhone), and re-invented mobile computing (iPad and MacBook Air). NONE of these were easy to do (obviously) and were revolutionary.

It just amazes me that people think Apple just reaches into a drawer and pulls out revolutionary product after revolutionary product. Sure, that would be wonderful, but it takes time to identify what needs to be revolutionized, then developing a product to do so, and finally getting it to market at a reasonable price.

And no, Apple is NOT the new Microsoft. Apple still improves its products.

And again, who give a shit about the stock? It’s just another thing to fold, spindle and mutilate in the rigged shell game that is the stock market. Are we really supposed to pretend that Apple’s stock settling down is bad for anyone else other than the hedge funds and shorts? All nonsense in the service of a narrative of greed and manipulation spun as positives for everyone, when its merely a con in favour of a few.

they elect the board who hire the CEO.
angry shareholders can pressure the board to get new CEO, new SVPs etc.

do YOU want Cook etc replaced? Maybe Ive might quit if there’s a new stupid CEO…

HP had no end of problems because the (shareholder appointed) board kept changing CEOs and interferring with running the company. the current HP CEO was a former member of the board who got the board to fire the last CEO.

One more time for people who keep saying apple should not bother with share price or shareholders:
((Jobs etc decided to go public years ago and sell shares to raise funds, not people just have to live with the fact that shareholders own apple. Apple is a PUBLIC not a PRIVATE company now).

SHAREHOLDERS ARE THE OWNERS (every apple asset, every office, factory, patent, retail store, all 130 billion is Cash etc) is owned by the shareholders and they ultimately control the company,

People complain that apple does not innovate but apple doesn’t even promote products it has already created!

. New imac, new mac mini but NO ads during the Christmas season. (someone argued with me that it was because they were supplied constrained for iMac BUT they haven’t run an imac ad for YEARS! and iPhone iPad etc were also supply constrained but they ran ads for them)

They have great mac products but they don’t promote them. They used to have tons of Mac PC guy ads (dozens of versions) but the last one was in 2009. No generic mac ads (except for the few during the olympics) since then! No Os X ads, no mac is better than windows, nothing.

Windows 8 Vista is blowing up but Apple is doing nothing to gain share.

I meet lots of people who want to switch but say they don’t want mac as the have monitors they want to keep — i.e they have no clue there is such a thing as a mac mini (because apple does not advertise them!). And no many people do NOT spend all their time browsing tech web sites…

Many potential switchers do NOT realize they can still run Windows on macs if they wanted to. Apple USED to run ads and teach people about this but no longer. Why????

Apple is NOT creating the dialog, building mind share , gaining sales IN SPITE of Win 8 VIsta!!

mac shipments came in light last quarter and all over the tech world it’s being written that macs have gone down 20% vs 6% for PCs. Bad manufacturing plans (why create a product so difficult to manufacture that you can’t make them and launch it for christmas) plus zero advertising (for mac mini) and little for macbook = dismal mac sales.

for people who argue with me that apple should not concentrate on a sinking segment like PCS note:

1) apple still only has 5% world market share in PCs, plenty of room to grow. Msft sold 300 million Win 7 licenses in short order and still just from software (no hardware PC sales) still rakes in billions every quarter from PC market.

2) apple shares started it’s fall last quarter from 700 when apple missed analysts estimates by about $200 million and this time it missed about a small amount as well.

Perhaps the slide could have been AVOIDED if apple sold a few more macs?

—
I won’t even mention all the SOFTWARE etc that apple has like Pages, aperture etc that apple does not bother to promote. Pages could be a serious office killer if they would push it (especially at the price point) but because it’s not on PCs and apple doesn’t promote it people still use MS office as it’s the standard…

apple due to it’s penny pinching (DNA from it’s lack of cash in it’s death spiral days) is OUTSPENT by HUGE amounts (huge!) in advertising by it’s rivals like Msft and Samsung.
SAMSUNG WHICH MAKE LESS PROFIT THAN APPLE OUTSPENDS APPLE FOUR (4!) TIMES !!
(I was in advertising: NewSpapers and magazines will give FAVOURABLE coverage to companies that BUY A LOT OF ADS FROM THEM !!!! do you make fun of your clients? NO ) why do you think msft and samsung etc get a free pass all the time in articles?? In many places like Europe Samsung is defining the media agenda.

so yeah people can write about apple’s NEW upcoming products but I think people should also voice out about apple’s lack of care of products they already have.

Apple understands advertisement better than anyone. Do you really think you know how to advertise for a billion dollar company better than a billion dollar company? It is very important not to over advertise a market, period. They will most certainly do tv advertisement when needed but it makes no sense to push it in the face of the public when they can’t keep up with the demand. It should also be mentioned that the tech market is going mobile with laptops, iPads, and smartphones. This is where a smart company should focus their efforts.

they haven’t advertised imac or ma mini for YEARS. so they didn’t advertise because they had production issues for years?

ALSO like I said iPhone and iPad were also manufacturing constrained so why don’t you say they shouldn’t advertise them (your words: “they can’t keep up with the demand”) In spite of constrained supply they ran tons of ads. EXPLAIN THAT GENIUS.

they don’t need to advertise OSX is better than Windows when lots of people have issues with Win 8?
like I said I meet lots of people who are thinking they want to switch but say they don’t want an imac becuase with no ads they don’t know a mac mini exists (lots of people simply will not do research themselves). so how do you justify that (not promoting) ?

“Do you really think you know how to advertise for a billion dollar company better than a billion dollar company? ”
so you must LOVE those ‘MAC USERS ARE STUPID ADS RUN DURING THE OLYMPICS?” because hey according to you a billion dollar company can’t run stupid ads. and of course they were SO SUCCESSFUL THEY ARE STILL RUNNING THEM… and making a whole bunch of new ones like the dozens of Mac PC guy ads.. (not).

so msft is also a billion dollar company, by your logic all it’s ads are great as well? including the Seinfeld ads, the Zune ‘squirting’ campaign … ? or the Palm ‘weird dancer’ ads…

saying that because it’s a billion dollar company it can’t make mistakes is STUPID (and i think not advertising macs is a mistake). Apple is also the one who hired Browlett to lead retail, made the hockey puck mouse, didn’t include CD-R drives in macs years ago (and had to rethink), MobileMe launch fumble etc. Sure according to your logic, they were still a billion dollar company when they did that so they weren’t mistakes?

mac sales fell 20% the just announced quarter (probably in large part dud to imac shortages) but in the quarter before it only grew 1%. Surely apple can do better than that (if they pushed it?). they still like I said only own 5% world market share.

people like you are sad.. you think that no one should criticize apple no matter how logical it is because apple has a halo.

Who needs to advertise when you’re selling things as fast as they come off the assembly line? People are still waiting weeks for product refreshes that came out two months ago. Any advertising might need to include the following disclaimer: Due to high demand, you may have to wait for a while before your product is delivered.

I don’t think you get the point. Apple is focusing their efforts in the area that tech is moving. Or in the direction that they expect tech to move. Not backwards, not towards microsoftian land. Mobile is where they advertise because they feel its best. You feel that iMacs are the future. My bet is on apples educated guess. Not yours. Sorry.

You’re quite far off base here. To paraphrase Jobs’ analogy, the future is cars because we’re not just a bunch of farmers anymore. But trucks still sell well and Apple would be foolish to lose the desktop market, especially when Microsoft is handing Apple a golden opportunity with that kludged up mess called Windows 8 that is pissing off the MSFT faithful.

Apple does not have the luxury of putting all its eggs in any one basket — it needs a full array of products to compete.

people are buying tablets and phones
but tens of millions of PCs are still being sold
Msft announced they easily sold 300 million Win 7 licenses… and makes BILLIONS just from software (with no PC hardware)
Mac has only 5% market share, there is plenty of growth potential

so apple stock is 1000 now , they can afford to piss off sales away????

(I’ve an iPad but use my Mac Pro 95% of the time.)

and IF “Apple is focusing their efforts in the area that tech is moving” …. explain WHY you spend tons of EFFORT and money building cutting edge Macs (using laser cutting technology , advanced laminated glass etc ) AND tons of EFFORT creating Cutting edge OSX (so much so that you GRANT the SVP for Mac OS thousands of shares worth TENS of $$$ millions at the time for overseeing Mt . Lion ) … ??
why all this EFFORT and millions spent and don’t promote them?

Most people including nearly all the mainline Press reporters BELIEVE FUNDALMENTALLY THERE IS NO DIFFERNCE BETWEEN MAC OS X AND WINDOWS (because apple has NOT marketed OSX advantages… )

one more time:
many potential switchers don’t know there is such a thing as a ‘headless’ mac mini (“I want to switch but i can’t as I want to keep my moitors”). Countless people I’ve met are SHOCKED there is such a thing as a mac mini and you can get the mac experience with including software like iMovie for $599 ( “I thought macs were expensive!”)
90% of the world’s population do NOT know they can run windows on a mac. (“I have to run windows apps so I cant get a mac.. “). they USED to run ads explaining this but for some bizarre reason they’ve stopped…

so leaving Win 8 Vista UNCHALLENGED is brilliant strategy to you? Leaving it in peoples minds that OSX is equal (i.e just as bad) as Win 8 is Good???

(again is aapl $1000 bucks now? )
apple’s slide from 700 started when it missed analysts estimats by $200 million in a quarter where mac sales gained only 1% from year ago… imagine if they had sold a few more macs.. maybe the stock will be above 700 now and not 400+ ?

APPLE COULD MAKE IT WITH LOW ADVERTISING SPENDING WHEN JOBS WAS AROUND BECAUSE JOBS ICONIC STATUS — he was on the cover of Time, Newweek etc every word he says is endlessly reported — but with him Gone apple needs to UP their marketing especially for macs and OSX.

so your saying apple SHOULD NOT BOTHER capitalizing on Win 8 vista surface fiaso but hammering them hard with ads?
like Apple OSX is BETTER?

WHY?

some people like myself NEED PCs, I have an iPad but spend 90% of time with my Mac Pro and twin giant monitors.
Leaving Low Hanging Fruit and capitalizing on Win 8 frustration is silly. Marketshare stuck at 5% Is silly.

apple could run tons of Mac Ads5 years ago but with more sales and more money it can’t now?

AGAIN aapl shares started to slide from 700+ because it missed analysts expections in the mid year quarter by about $200 million (with the followup of countless doom stories in the press). In the quarter apple Mac’s only gained 1% from year ago. If they had sold a few more macs apple would have hit analysts targets (No doom stories) perhaps apple stock would STILL be 700+

I’m never letting Carol Roth invest my money as she did no research. iTunes as I understand it runs slightly above the break even point and doesn’t generate “billions in profits”. Also she like other experts (sic) fail to understand profit share market share. Idiots.